


Through The Glass

by celestaires



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Post fall of Beacon, References to Depression, Spoilers: Volume 3 (RWBY), except its really not canonical in my mind, gelato, screaming for ice cream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29727822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestaires/pseuds/celestaires
Summary: As Beacon Academy falls, so too do the futures of so many huntsmen in training, as they retire to the safety of their homes and loved ones. Yet, to those less fortunate; how can they react, with no comfort to embrace when their own worlds crumble?
Relationships: Neopolitan/Roman Torchwick
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Through The Glass

I saw him through the glass.

The fall of Beacon was something else, to be sure - much had transpired in that one fateful night that tore families and friends apart through death or otherwise, wracked suffering across the land, and marked such cataclysmal disaster that the course of history would be mangled and warped forever. Cinder Fall had claimed the remaining powers of the wilting Fall Maiden for herself, slowly crawling her way up the ranks and becoming a force that one day will become a recognisable threat. Students that evacuated the crumbling school in time were ushered home, returning into the arms of families scared sick by such disaster to plague their children, most likely walking home with heads rattled by misery and many, many questions, as to why their beloved academy was wrought with such damage and negativity. But no one had been put through such hell as Beacon like I. At least the rest of Remnant could recover. I wasn't blessed with such a luxury, it seems. Perhaps I was simply vitriolic for all the world had stripped from me to my bones, but for the same ubiquitous harmony it seems to gift upon others, all that I do seems just.

Oh, how the Brothers chose lovingly to make me repent for my criminality.

It was one night; another night of pure, unfiltered silence. So many nights now ended like this, where I became trapped inside my own mind, words and phrases and emotions I'd longed to say never falling past my lips like they could once before, leaving the shallow four walls I resided in a makeshift prison of static that buzzed around my brain. My muteness was never a hinderance before - I could get my message across just fine. I was always able to communicate. I made my own silent noise, invented my own colourful language through actions over words - and _he_ understood. He was the only man in the land of Remnant who could read my lips, hear my mind; speak my thoughts. See the soundless words and sentences and long, drawn out phrases I would share with him spill from my lips and into his ears, never needing to talk to him as anyone else would. It took no vocalisation to speak, and he never failed to reply in his silver-tongued, honeyed way, always graced with a devilish smile dripping with charm. His air of brilliance filled the room with noise so bright and encapsulating, the electric pride he displayed on his lips and in his eyes caused the air to crescendo into a lovely, familiar and chaotic sense I learned to appreciate.

Now, the silence was deafening. It had never rang so loud before.

I couldn't stand it.

I sat alone. I did that a lot now. I sat and I let myself become lost to the night around, to the darkness that took fondness in swallowing me whole from the inside out. In the desolate, dingy apartment I had managed to coup myself up in for a while, a clock ticked away from somewhere in the corner of the room, each second perforating my thoughts with its taunting rhythm. I would’ve reminisced in times past, that perhaps each chime of a second passing fell into blissful harmony with my heart as blood flows and time accelerates. Yet now, residing in this foreign place and temporary abode, I dreaded the passage of the hours and days and weeks I would spend, knowing the security I longed for was extinguished. No blood flowed through me, for I considered myself a walking corpse who simply roamed this land with no direction; an aimless body, carried only by a sliver of a hope I should’ve know better than to harbour. Each night I felt my brain rotting away as it spiralled down and down into a mangled mess of thoughts, tossed by my own hands into a pit that grew steadily familiar to the ache, the strongest and most unbearable of emotions I never thought I needed to idle through again. I never had to face this intensity when he was here; my own personal beacon of hope, ever present in the fleeting moments where the world around us encroached and spat and wanted us more than dead, to guide me back to the surface and away from the sickly black pools of my mind as they churned and bubbled. Now snuffed was the light I thought could burn forever, blanketed permanently under the carcases of Grimm and rubble of Beacon Academy.

...Unless -

No. How ludicrous, my mind. Such an outlandish thought to bring. What would this do? What would it bring? What would I get from this?

...Isn't it worth it, to see him again?

  
  
  


The clock blared its ticking agitation as I rose to the mirror, shadowed in the hall of the apartment. Full length, chipped if you squint – a bit dusty, I never felt the will to clean it. I’ve sparingly gazed at myself in this same mirror countless times and… everything in place, as it should be. Well - not everything. I knew I had changed in some regard, the gloomy crescents of sleepless nights sneered at me from under my eyes. I semi-consciously straightened my posture in the mirror, acknowledging faintly the slouch I seemed to wear. I forgot how to smile at myself, really. Other than that, his possessions still rested on my head, hung from my neck, a comforting reminder of him. I reminisced in that moment, recalling said items on their owner, belonging there and screaming statements of rebellion. Yet... for just a moment, I concluded, I could perhaps return them to him. I could give back to him what he left behind, and what he deserved to reclaim, his pride, his name. His face once more. My lack of language opened my eyes to a world of make-believe, taught me long ago how to play an act - I could pretend to be him. To _see_ him, once more. To return to normality, familiarity, as he would see me, and I could indulge once again in watching how his demeanour changed when he recognised me. The way his eyes brightened, his tone softened for only me, unabashed and rid of any haughty air - a once daring and maintained man who grinned in the face of the law, reduced to the gentleness of a fawn, all security and safety, for myself alone.  
  
  
What I would give, other than my own mind, to see him.  
  
  


  
  


I could pretend, just for a while.

  
  
  
  
  
Overactive Imagination: I saw myself twist and change. My skin pricked and crawled with Aura, and I watched with disquiet as rose-tinted glass raised the outline of my form in a pink ocean's wave. The dim room illuminated, pink hues casting themselves along every inch of the tiny apartment, giving it a small window of something colourful and bright. Fractures glittered and tinted as they caught the waning hue of the moon, brightened ever more as they reflected in the hazed mirror. All at once, I watched on with bated breath as my identity was stripped from me, washed over in a fleeting pale shimmer, as it has been countless times before. Yet never with such consequences; not in a lifetime had I feared of facing the mask I would slip over myself. Dark, pale colours of spring wisped away into the air, bundled up into the brilliance of autumn's vibrant leaves. I startled, just momentarily, as my vision voided on one side from shortened locks tumbling over my eye, clouding the room in an unbalanced shadow more striking than before. The petite femininity I carried is scrubbed from existence, replaced by broad shoulders and sharply crisp features, curves shaped to angles and soft skin to muscle. Coat tails leaped and inverted, peeled back darks for whites and deepened soft pinks for stark reds, fabric stretched over pale skin, the light in the room dimmed once more... and there he was.

  
  
  
  


I saw him through the glass.

  
  
  
  


Through the dust-coated, disturbed pane he stood where I once was, filling the tiny imperfect reflection with his overwhelming height and grand presence. His verdant eyes gave opportunity to drink in every detail, every corner and colour with an insatiable, terrifying hunger I had long since grown to accept and presumed I could ignore, relished in silent fear the opportunity of even being able to see every aspect of what made him, _him_. Each glance along the grime was languid, so painfully drawn out to reinforce that everything was in place and right, exactly as my memory allowed me to remember. And then he looked up.

…That wasn't him. Never had he looked like that. Never would he stoop so low to _allow_ himself to look like that. Not once, in the countless memories I had of him, had I seen such a disgusting entwinement of dread and uncertainty in his eyes, such a quiver in his lip. A dip in his shoulders, a knot in his brow. He held himself so unsure and doubtful, a contrast to how beautifully egotistical he was - he _is_. He _is_ proud, not this shivering wreck of a man, this unnaturally mousey being before me. He _is_ the epitome of a confidence unmatched by any other in his profession, of stylised grace and hubris in his every single move that he flaunts. The boastful attitude in his smile that did not exist. The mirthful crescents that crinkled the corners of his eyes that only clouded with disdain. Not this. Acting be damned, I saw it for myself. I watched with an uncomfortable stirring in my mind, a feeling I failed to place as I felt my trembling lips shiver upward, as I watched him try to smile. His smile was his winning trait, one thing out of countless others that made him stand out; plastered on wanted posters for the world of Remnant to gasp at, for the law to turn their noses up at – for me, to admire. For me. It was disgusting here. Why wasn’t it the same?

This wasn't him.

_This wasn't him._

I could never be-

My eyes upturn, my heart shatters like glass. I watched the unfamiliar glint of tears spill from his eyes as his countenance twisted unbearably; the silent, enraged, tangled and screaming regret that festered in my mind taking pleasure in mocking me so. His cheeks stained with unwanted emotion, and the smile he attempted to bring broke away, twisting awfully into a barely bitten back scowl. I tried to find the reason, the means for this sudden change in him, but all I found was a grotesque amalgamation of panicked agitation and loathing for what he could never be again. The cowering dip in his shoulders returned, unwanted, and he looked small despite his stature. His gloved hands shook with an uncontrollable, foreign entwinement of so many loud feelings neither of us can understand, and he meets my equally shaken gaze once more in the opposite side of the pane. This wasn't him, of course not. This could never be him. I could never see him again.  
  
  
  
What are you doing? Roman Torchwick is-  
  
  


Overactive Imagination: I saw him twist and change. I watched on, with bleary eyes, as he doubled over horridly with a desperate grip to his head, letting out a strangled sob of silence and broken, ragged breaths as shimmering glass overtakes him, pulling him under its silky waves and back into the realms of my own mind. His honeyed tone could never be my own, never to be replicated again through my mute language - not even in the darkest of moments, when I knew I’d need him most. I felt my returned slender body slump, feeling the wracking motions of a grief continuous that stalked my waking moments, more terrifying than any of the Grimm outside those four walls. The clocks ticks boom into the air, eager to remind me of all I’ve lost - the only neighbouring sound of the night being my stark, lacking form hitting floorboards as I gave in, shook so violently with a terrifying sense of loneliness as I shouted and wailed and sobbed out hours, days, months’ worth of anguish, for no one to hear. For no one to understand, spare the man I knew would never return, though clung to a selfish sense of hope that one day I could see him again. How silly of me to have thought such a thing. The world fades black.

I saw him through the glass - for a moment, but maybe it was just my imagination.

**Author's Note:**

> hello! thank you for reading all the way to the end! (yaaay!!!)
> 
> for anyone who may be confused as to what this all is, tl:dr; neo uses her semblance to turn into roman because she misses him and just wants to see him again but whoopsie! that's a bad idea because FEELINGS AND ANGST 
> 
> i. really hope i was able to convey that through this nwdhsjf
> 
> hope you enjoyed! i wanna post more rwby things in the future hopefully which /will/ include other characters and /will/ be more in character as i practice and . as soon as i get off the gelato train . it'll happen one day i swear .
> 
> p.s. sorry if i'm ooc with neo or her perceptions of him, in my mind she's hooked on looking up to him in admiration and adoration, and also because i wanted to explore a more contrasting side of neo where she's able to rid herself of her scary badass persona when she's alone :P


End file.
